Enchantress (Medieval Trilogy 1)

“Frantic,” Ware admitted, feeling a fool. Morgana had duped him, pure and simple. “The cur was in her room and whined and scratched at the door. When we let him out an hour ago, the damned beast bolted across the bailey, trying like the devil to get out. The stable boy caught him and it was all Roy could do to restrain him. The animal nearly bit the boy’s hand off.”

Strahan squeezed his eyes shut, his patience wearing thin. “Bloody damn.” His jaw ticked anxiously. “I can’t believe that she was kidnapped. I have enough trouble thinking that Logan and Jocelyn were snatched away from our guards, but Morgana, too?” He snorted in disbelief and disgust, then reached for his mazer of wine and, finding it empty, snapped his fingers and pointed at the cup. A second later a white-faced page grabbed the cup from the table and hurried off toward the kitchen.

“I doubt she was taken,” Ware admitted. He didn’t want to tell Strahan about his conversation with Morgana, but couldn’t lie. So he explained about her request to leave and watched Strahan’s emotions play across his chiseled face. At first anxious for Morgana’ safety, his expression changed with the color that rode high on his cheeks. His muscles coiled, and he suddenly seemed primitive and savage, all signs of his English civility stripped away. There had always been rivalry between Strahan and Garrick, a rivalry that had worsened when Strahan’s family lost Castle Hazelwood to McBrayne and Strahan had to bow to Garrick, a man he’d always considered his equal. The situation with Morgana only made things worse, for it was obvious to everyone in the castle that Garrick was attracted to the witch and quite possibly Morgana of Wenlock felt the same way toward the baron. Once again, Strahan came in a short second to his cousin.

Ware, too, understood Morgana’s allure. Didn’t he want her attention? “My guess is she took off with the farmer — either paid to hide her or deceived him as well.”

“Bah! The girl is no fool! Why would she chance defying Garrick?” Strahan demanded.

“She is … stubborn.”

“Or in love?” Strahan asked, the question catching Ware off guard.

“That I couldn’t say,” he lied, though he, like anyone with eyes at Abergwynn, could guess at the silent pas

sion in the witch’s eyes as she glanced at Garrick. He flushed scarlet and buried his nose in his near-empty cup.

“Don’t lie to me, Ware,” Strahan said in a voice that was low and angry. “Everyone in this damned castle pretends not to notice what is happening between Garrick and Morgana. Aye, even I tried to tell myself I was seeing things that weren’t there, but I was deceiving myself.” He cursed softly under his breath and shoved his dark hair from his eyes. Until that moment Ware wouldn’t have thought Strahan capable of caring about anyone but himself, but he’d been wrong. Apparently Strahan was very much taken with his bride to be.

There was a rustle behind the curtains, and Springan, Morgana’s woman servant, appeared with a tray and two fresh cups of wine. Ware hadn’t heard her approach and wondered if she’d lingered on the other side of the curtains, listening to their conversation. “Habren thought you might want these, m’lord. The page said you were thirsty.” She smiled at Ware and placed the cups on the table. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, and Ware wondered if she’d been holding back tears. But why?

Strahan glanced in her direction, and his thin lips turned down, as if she’d done something to displease him. A shaft of agony cut across her features, but she quickly looked away. “Is — is there anything else?” she asked of Ware.

“This is fine.”

“Be off with you, woman,” Strahan ordered, and a spark of anger flared in the girl’s eyes. Her fingers tightened around the rim of the tray. She turned, as if to do Strahan’s bidding, but Ware wasn’t finished.

“You know that Lady Morgana is missing?”

“Aye,” Springan lifted her small chin in a mimicry of regal defiance as she turned back to face him again. Her gaze swept to Strahan and landed for a blistering second before cooling as she spoke to Ware. “I reported her absence to Lady Clare.”

“Have you any idea where she might have gone?”

One of her elegant eyebrows arched maliciously, as if she were savoring the conversation. “The lady told me nothing. But she would not leave her beast unless she was taken against her will … or unless she was in a hurry.”

“You think she might have been kidnaped from Abergwynn?”

Again a hot, furtive glance at Strahan. “I think Lady Morgana defied you as well as Lord Garrick and then escaped Abergwynn, either to return to Wenlock or … to follow her heart.” Her fingers worked nervously around the edge of the tray, and she shot Strahan a biting, scornful glance. “I think Lady Morgana left to search out the baron, as she was afraid for his safety.”

Strahan sneered, “You think she’s in love with him.”

“What I think, m’lord, is not important,” Springan said through clenched teeth before whirling around and marching stiffly out of the great hall.

“Bloody wench,” Strahan muttered. He took a huge gulp of wine and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “She knows how to service a man well, but she can’t stop using her tongue as a damned whip.” His eyebrows were knotted as he studied the hallway where Springan had disappeared. “If she were my servant, I’d beat her within an inch of her life.”

Ware’s stomach turned as he pictured Strahan, leather whip raised, sweat beading his brow while Springan lay across a bed, biting her lip to keep from screaming, the snowy white skin of her back marred by ugly red welts. “She was only speaking her mind.”

“She’s a servant, Ware; she has no mind. Besides, she beds any man who’ll have her. For a kind smile a man can do what he will. She’ll lift her skirts and spread her legs, or if you say just the right words — whisper some ridiculous flattery — she’ll use her tongue to … well, to do whatever you have in mind.” He was looking at Ware strangely, as if the thought of bedding Springan was as appealing as watching her writhe in pain from a beating. “So don’t worry about Springan. That little whore can take care of herself.”

“Servants are never beaten at Abergwynn,” Ware reminded him.

“Unless Garrick thinks they might be hiding his son.”

“The guards who were in charge of Logan—”

Strahan waved off Ware’s excuses. “They lived. Now what’re you going to do about Morgana?”

Ware felt too heavy a burden resting on his young shoulders. “There is nothing we can do. Garrick told us to stay here and protect Abergwynn. That’s what has to be done.” He drained his own glass as if his decision were final.